# Golden ratio discovered in a quantum world



## departuresong (Jan 8, 2010)

> Researchers from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie (HZB), in cooperation with colleagues from Oxford and Bristol Universities, as well as the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, UK, have for the first time observed a nanoscale symmetry hidden in solid state matter. They have measured the signatures of a symmetry showing the same attributes as the golden ratio famous from art and architecture. The research team is publishing these findings in Science on the 8. January.
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> On the atomic scale particles do not behave as we know it in the macro-atomic world. New properties emerge which are the result of an effect known as the Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. In order to study these nanoscale quantum effects the researchers have focused on the magnetic material cobalt niobate. It consists of linked magnetic atoms, which form chains just like a very thin bar magnet, but only one atom wide and are a useful model for describing ferromagnetism on the nanoscale in solid state matter.
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http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-01/haog-grd010510.php


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## opaltiger (Jan 9, 2010)

Watch the fundamentalists insist this is proof of creationism.


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## Harlequin (Jan 9, 2010)

TBH it makes sense that they'd find a golden ratio. If there weren't rules and systems in place we'd have _chaos_! And since we don't have chaos but rather an ordered universe...

but idk, I'm shit at physics.


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